


when i wake up, i'm afraid (somebody else might take my place)

by darlingargents



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Altered Mental States, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, But I Don't Know For Sure, Captivity, Darkest Night 2018, F/M, Gen, High on the Dark Side, I Don't Know If This Is A Romantic Relationship, It's Certainly Not Entirely Platonic, Kidnapping, Sith, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-13 08:56:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16014578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/pseuds/darlingargents
Summary: Ahsoka doesn't come quietly. She kills five before they knock her out. When she wakes up, she’s bound by metal cables that are cutting into her skin and tearing it open. She’s on a ship, flying to her death.She didn’t wonder, then, why they didn’t kill her.She should have.





	when i wake up, i'm afraid (somebody else might take my place)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/gifts).



> Title from Afraid by The Neighbourhood.

Ahsoka blamed it on the date. Because she knew, without a doubt, that if it hadn’t been exactly ten years since Order 66, she wouldn’t have been caught off guard.

Empire Day celebrations, like many other things, vary significantly planet-to-planet. Nearly always since they began, Ahsoka had found reason to be on planets with a low-to-nonexistent Imperial presence for that day. Hearing the jubilant anthem and watching the fireworks and weapons displays is just too much for her when all she can think about is feeling everyone she knows die.

It’s not the best day for her. And worse, with her responsibilities as Fulcrum, she’s stuck on Naboo this year, which has one of the biggest and most extravagant Empire Day celebrations in the galaxy due to being the Emperor’s homeworld. Second only to Coruscant. Maybe. It’s hard to imagine, in the midst of what feels like absolutely overpowering Imperial might, that it could be second to anything.

The Force is murky with fear and occasional excitement, and Ahsoka is shutting it down as much as possible as sunset comes and the parade through Theed starts. She’s nowhere near the festivities, but she can still hear them as she makes her way through the streets in the seedier part of town. There’s cheering and shouting and the faint strains of the anthem, the upbeat tune an earworm that Ahsoka would desperately prefer to forget but will probably be playing in her head for the half hour after it ends. She’s trying to focus, to find the address of her contact. She’s not sure if she can trust them, but she’s on her guard. She feels fairly sure she can hold her ground against nearly anyone, at least long enough to escape.

She’s just thinking that, as she ducks into a narrow alley, when a new model of TIE fighter screams over her head, the wail of its engine piercing her head. She clamps a hand over one montral, wincing, and stumbles—

And that’s when they get her. The only warning she gets is the sizzle of a lightsaber being drawn. Her ‘sabers are in her hands and ignited in seconds, but she’s surrounded. Every door in this alley is opening and spitting out Inquisitors.

She has only a moment to consider that they must  _ really _ want to get her before she’s overtaken. There’s a lightsaber pointing at her from every angle. If she shifts even a little, she’ll be stabbed.

“Lady Tano,” says the one in front of her, a humanoid with a metal helmet covering their — her, maybe — face. “Will you come quietly?”

Ahsoka does not. She kills five before they knock her out. When she wakes up, she’s bound by metal cables that are cutting into her skin and tearing it open. She’s on a ship, flying to her death.

She didn’t wonder, then, why they didn’t kill her. 

She should have.

*

They bind her hands behind her back and surround her as they march her into a building. She can’t see it since they’re so tightly packed around her, but she can smell sulfur and see flashes of metal. Her stomach lurches. She’s on Mustafar. Home ground of Darth Vader, the Jedi Killer.

There’s a familiar presence here, but she can’t place it. A Force user, one she knew before. It’s not one of the Inquisitors marching her in — she didn’t feel it on the ship and it’s not close enough to be one of the others who joined her kidnappers when they arrived. Of which there were a lot more than she expected.

She realizes with grim amusement that if they’re surrounding her with twenty Inquisitors on Vader’s turf, they must have a lot of faith in her abilities. It’s flattering, but it makes any escape she might’ve planned significantly more difficult. Which is exactly the point.

The familiar presence comes and goes from her attention as she’s led to a cell. It’s larger than she might’ve thought — long enough that she could lie down parallel the wall with a meter or so of extra space, and square — but sparse, with only a “bed” — no mattress, no blankets — in one corner and a refresher in the other, with a water sink and a sonic shower. The walls, floor, and everything else are the same gunmetal gray durasteel. There are no windows, and she swears she can almost see the walls shrinking even from outside the door.

A cold chill runs down Ahsoka’s spine. When she looks into the room, she sees days and months and years in front of her, and she’s hit with the panicked animal terror of being locked up and never again seeing the sun. She twists in the arms of the Mirialan who’s holding her, trying to wrench herself free, and she hears a mocking giggle before the Mirialan catches her wrist and pulls it up behind her back, hard enough that it feels like her shoulder’s going to be popped out of its socket. Ahsoka doesn’t let herself scream, but it’s a close thing.

She’s thrown in the room with no ceremony, and the door locks behind her. The lights power down instantly, and she’s alone in the dark.

*

Ahsoka is afraid to sleep.

They’d knocked her out on Naboo, and that was when they managed to get her. It’s not entirely logical, but a voice in the back of her head is screaming at her to keep herself awake, because when she falls asleep, that’s when they’ll take her.

So she meditates. For hours and hours in the dark cell.

The hours stretch into days, and Ahsoka’s mind starts to lose its fragile hold on reality. Jedi can survive much longer without sleep than most beings, but she knows she’s pushing her limits. She can’t see, but the darkness has a blurry quality. Her head is pounding like a drum.

She’s terrified. She keeps her eyes open.

*

The lights blink on again after approximately four days. Ahsoka stands on shaky legs, and sees, for the first time, a pile of boxes of food that had been delivered through a slot in the wall while she was deep in meditation.

She should probably eat, but she doesn’t know if the food is poisoned. She doesn’t think they would try to kill her with poison, but they might drug her to knock her out again, and it’s not a risk she wants to take. But her stomach hurts like she’s been kicked there repeatedly. She’s been using all her energy to meditate and stay awake. Her body is more starved than it would typically be after four days of ingesting nothing but small sips of water from the sink.

Cautiously, she moves towards the pile of boxes and picks up the one off the top. When she opens the seal, the food is still steaming. It’s a meat stew with bread, the most typical fare that you can find anywhere in the galaxy at all-hours diners and 

Her senses are telling her it’s not poisoned. But she’s not going to take the risk. She closes the box and stands, her legs nearly giving out under her as they straighten. She takes a hesitant step, and then another, and makes it to the bed.

Ahsoka lies down. The cold metal hurts her montrals, and she pinches her wrist to add another spark of distraction. To stay awake. To stay alert.

To wait.

*

The intercom system in Ahsoka’s cell crackles to life several hours later, and Ahsoka nearly jumps out of her skin. Mainly because she somehow didn’t realize there  _ was _ an intercom system.

“The food is not poisoned.”

Ahsoka sits up. Slowly, because her head is spinning, and the voice is… strange. Distorted and artificially deepened. But somewhere under there… she swears, she recognizes its owner.

“You’re watching me, huh?” she says, filing her thoughts away for later. She stretches, and her stomach muscles are shot through with pain. “Figures. I have no reason to believe you.”

“You need food and sleep. Your slow attempt at suicide will not succeed. Eat the food and sleep, or it will be forced upon you.” The voice sounds almost exasperated. Ahsoka is intensely curious. Why do they care if she dies? Why are they keeping her here? Why didn’t they just kill her in the first place?

Instead of saying any of that, she says, “I’m not attempting suicide.”

“Then eat. Or you will be made to.” The intercom clicks off.

Ahsoka doesn’t trust her surroundings. She doesn’t trust the food. She doesn’t trust enough to let her guard down. But… she’s losing strength. She’s losing sanity.

She needs sleep and food. She’s loath to admit it, but she does.

Slowly, she moves towards the food, and picks up the box she’d opened before. It’s still warm, despite her unsealing it hours ago. The fork that goes with it slides out of the box, and almost seems to stare at her. She has a choice, and she needs to make it.

She takes the fork. She eats the food, slowly and carefully, knowing her body won’t be able to handle her eating it too quickly. Even going this slowly, she nearly gets violently ill, but the feeling passes and she finishes it.

Ahsoka is ravenous. She wants to eat every single box that’s here. But she’s already feeling shaky and ill and she knows she can’t, so she wrenches herself away from the food and lies down on the bed.

She doesn’t want to sleep. Her eyes drift closed. She doesn’t want to sleep. She opens her eyes, and sees that the light in her cell is dimming. Not turning off completely, but it’s now dim enough to comfortably sleep.

They’re trying to make her comfortable. The thought fills her with horror, but she’s asleep before she can parse out exactly why.

*

Ahsoka isn’t sure how long she sleeps, but when she finally wakes up again, the piled-up boxes are gone. Her fears are at least partly vindicated: a droid or person came into her cell while she slept. But she can’t really find it in herself to care at the moment — her stomach is hurting again. She’s probably been sleeping for the better part of a day.

As soon as she sits up, another box falls through the slot and lands on the ground. She looks at it for a moment, considering. Sure, it might be poisoned. But it’s possible that her only way to escape is to play along, make herself seem complacent. They want her alive.

They want her alive. There’s something frightening about that. She pushes it to the back of her mind, and takes the food.

*

For the next few days, she plays the perfect prisoner. Eats her food when it arrives, and feels her health slowly building back up. Sleeps at regular intervals. Uses the sonic shower, despite how much it hurts her montrals. She still meditates, but not for days at a time, and only really because there’s very little else to do.

She’s starting to get a feel for this place. It’s full of the Dark side, drowning in it, enough to choke her when she breathes. She can feel it pulling at her as she wears away the hours. It’s only down to fragile self-control that she didn’t end up being caught up in it after starving herself and not sleeping for days. She’s never been that close to fully losing control before, and it scares her when she thinks about it.

After about a week, the voice comes over the intercom again. “I see you have adapted to your circumstances,” it says. Ahsoka, in the middle of doing pushups, stops and moves to her knees to look up at the intercom, which is probably in the same place as the camera.

“I suppose,” she says when it becomes clear that the voice is looking for a conversation.

“I wish for you to join me for a meal. Be ready in one standard hour.” The intercom clicks off. Ahsoka blinks.

That’s certainly unexpected.

*

Despite her reservations, Ahsoka does what the voice says. She showers, and when she gets out, she finds that a package has been dropped through the food slot. It’s a new set of clothes. She thinks for a moment that it might be something awful, like an extremely revealing dress or even just a slip or lingerie, but it’s not: it’s very well-made, if plain, spacer’s clothes. Comfortable pants with plenty of pockets, a plain shirt covered by a warm jacket, underclothes, and boots.

It’s certainly more comfortable than the clothes she’s been wearing for nearly two weeks straight. And when she puts it on, it fits perfectly.

As soon as she’s fastened the last button on the jacket, her cell door slides open. She has only a moment to consider bolting before she sees the dozen Inquisitors filling the hallway outside. They’re still taking no chances. The Mirialan comes into her cell, and Ahsoka can’t see her face behind the mask, but she thinks that the Mirialan is smiling. A predator, ready to tear Ahsoka apart.

Well, Togruta are predators too. Ahsoka smiles, showing all her teeth, and says, “Lead the way.”

*

She’s flanked on either side by Inquisitors, and the rest follow behind her, ready to jump into action the second she moves a muscle the wrong direction. She keeps her hands at her sides and her stance relaxed throughout the short walk. The facility is all durasteel and efficiency, with bright white lights lining the ceiling and casting sharp shadows. They pass more cells, most of which seem unoccupied, before exiting what seems to be the prison area and entering a wider hall with dimmer, red lights at head level. They take a few turns, and Ahsoka commits them all to memory before they finally turn down a short, dead-end hall terminating in a single, heavy door. The Inquisitors stop, and the Mirialan pushes her forward.

None of the Inquisitors follow Ahsoka as she takes a tentative step, so she assumes this is her destination. She reaches for the door and it swings open — strange, for such an otherwise practical facility — revealing a long table. And at the other end of it, standing and watching her, is Darth Vader. Her breath freezes in her lungs.

“Come in,” Vader says. Ahsoka blinks.

“It was you in my cell,” she says, before she can think better of it. Vader doesn’t visibly react, and she finds herself thrown. Why would Lord Vader, someone so powerful in the Imperial hierarchy, lower himself to convincing a prisoner to eat before he had to force it? Who  _ is _ Vader? It’s a question that’s occupied the Rebel Alliance for years at this point, and Ahsoka, as Fulcrum, has been at the forefront of the search for the answer. She’s never gotten close to discovering the truth.

_ He must be _ , she thinks, slightly hysterically,  _ someone I know. Or knew, at least. _

That doesn’t narrow it down. It doesn’t make her any less frightened.

“Yes,” Vader says, and Ahsoka remembers she’d asked him a question. “Sit down.” That is clearly not a question. She moves away from the door and it swings silently shut, closing out the Inquisitors. It’s just them, and a pair of droids by Vader’s side. When she sits in the chair at the opposite end of the table from Vader, one of them glides over and pours something alcoholic into her glass. She picks it up and sniffs it.

“It’s wine,” Vader says. “From Naboo vineyards. Vintage.” He doesn’t have a plate or glass in front of him, but she supposes he probably can’t eat with that mask on. She had an entire holodrive on her old ship with analyses of his suit, and most of them had concluded that he is either a near-human and seriously damaged under the mask, or some unknown species of humanoid that can’t breath galaxy-standard air. Since she’s in his personal facility and it clearly has galaxy-standard oxygen, she’s assuming it’s the former.

And she’s pretty sure, at this point, that he doesn’t want her dead. Her senses are telling her the wine is safe. So she takes a sip, still half expecting, despite all logic, that she’ll drop dead.

She doesn’t. It’s very good wine, sweet and complex, and exactly the kind of drink she enjoys. It’s as if Vader knows her taste in food, and she puts down the glass quickly when the realization hits her. She feels cold all over.

“It’s good,” she says, keeping her voice even. “Did you choose it?”

“It was a preferred vintage of my wife,” Vader says.

Everything stops. If Ahsoka had still been holding the glass, it would’ve fallen from her suddenly numb fingers as her mind races ahead, connecting dots and coming to a horrifying conclusion. As is, her mouth falls open and she finds herself staring, hyperventilating, and panicking in a way she can’t remember doing for years and years.

It can’t — it can’t be. It can’t be.

Vader is watching her. She can’t see his eyes, but she can tell. He’s watching, gauging her reactions. Clinically. Anakin never would have done that.

Anakin.

Anakin, her master, the person she had loved most, who died fifteen years ago. Ahsoka had felt him die, felt it deep in her soul, like she was being killed along with him.

It can’t be true, but her soul knows it is. She can feel him, so close to her. His desperation for connection, for her, is echoing inside her. It’s a wonder she didn’t feel it the second she arrived. It’s Anakin. Or, it’s the man who was Anakin Skywalker until something inside him shifted from lightness to darkness. Anakin Skywalker is dead, but his body and soul are not at rest.

Ahsoka knows, now, why she’s still alive.

Her tongue feels heavy in her mouth, but she manages to make herself speak. “I didn’t realize you were married.”

“You guessed.” Now that she knows, she can hear the cadence of Anakin’s voice through the filter. If he weren’t wearing the helmet, would he sound the same? If she closed her eyes, would she be able to pretend?

“I did,” she said. Padmé had been a force of nature, an incredible politician and fearless leader. And she’d died fifteen years ago.

Along with Anakin, or so Ahsoka had thought. She’s always doubted the official statement that Senator Amidala was killed by a rogue Jedi, but now she wonders exactly how much more there is to her story. It’s been years since she thought about Padmé for more than a moment. Ahsoka cared about her, but she was only one among hundreds of people she had cared about who had died.

It doesn’t matter right now. She forces herself to take another sip of the wine. It tastes like dust in her mouth. Did Vader pick it out thinking of her? Or Padmé?

“Droid, bring in the food,” Vader says, and Ahsoka puts down her glass, knowing she won’t touch it again. The droid who poured her wine glides out and returns a moment later with a covered tray. She sits in silence as it’s placed in front of her and the cover is removed with a flourish.

In any other circumstance, Ahsoka would be delighted to eat this meal. It’s catered to her tastes exactly, with little samples of all her favourite cuisines — from when she was a teenager. All still things she’d enjoy, but if Vader’s comment about his wife hadn’t gotten her to connect the dots, this would have. It’s a physical symbol of his memory, to the point of obsession.

She picks up a fork, and her stomach violently churns as she spears a piece of spiced bantha meat — a Shili delicacy — and takes a bite. She can tell it’s delicious. She can also tell that she may never be able to eat it again.

It’s the longest meal of her life. Ahsoka takes small bites of everything on the plate, eating at least half of what’s there, and when she thinks she’s eaten enough to look like she gave it a fair shot, she pushes away her plate. “I’m finished.”

“Of course,” Vader says, and gestures for the droid to remove her plate. He’d just sat and watched her the whole time. He probably can’t eat real food anymore, which meant the whole meal was just for her. “Come with me.”

Men like Vader don’t ask questions often, but Ahsoka hears an undercurrent of it in his statement. She thinks that maybe, if she were to take the risk and say  _ no, return me to my cell, _ that he would do it. She thinks that maybe she’s the first person Vader has actually given a choice, of any kind, since he came into being.

She nods, and follows him.

*

Vader leads her to a large room that she realizes, after entering, must be his personal suite of rooms. There’s very little in the way of personality or customization, but it’s the little things. A broken-down droid in the corner, with a few dirtied tools on a small table next to it: the exact type of pet project Anakin would have taken on. A galaxy map projected in the corner, with little red markers that Ahsoka thinks probably indicate the planets he’s been to recently. A holopad open to a page of commentary and tips on flying the newest model of TIE fighters — less engineer and more pilot-oriented. Apparently the steering mechanism sometimes sticks after five or six rotations.

There’s also the most obvious hint: a massive, egg-shaped chamber in the middle of the main room that Ahsoka recognizes as a life support pod. Anakin steps into it as the door of the main room closes behind Ahsoka, and it seals around him.

He reaches up for his mask, and Ahsoka realizes with a surge of conflicted emotions that she’s about to see his face. She finds herself leaning backwards against a table, just to have something to hold her up, as the helmet unseals and he lifts it off, slowly and carefully. Ahsoka can see the back of his head — burned and hairless.

When he turns, the air is knocked out of Ahsoka’s lungs.

It’s Anakin. There’s no denying it. She knows his appearance as well as her own. That’s his face: his mouth, his nose, the shape of his jaw and his eyes. He has no remaining hair, and scar tissue covers his skin, and his eyes glow the golden of Ahsoka’s worst nightmares, but it’s still him.

“Anakin,” she breathes, unable to help herself, and steps forward to place one hand on the glass of his life support pod.

For a moment, as she stares into his eyes, she wonders if he’s going to kill her. And then he lifts his hand and carefully, gently, places it on the glass. Over hers.

“Snips,” he says, and Ahsoka feels like she’s going to scream with a million emotions. Grief and anger and regret and, above all, a desperate longing to have him back, to have him in her arms and to never let him go away from her again.  _ Anything _ , she thinks wildly,  _ I’d do anything _ , and has to pull herself back. She wouldn’t do  _ anything _ . She’s still enough a Jedi to know that.

_ Not anything _ , she thinks as she curls her fingers a little against the glass. She can feel the Dark side around her, trying to draw her in.  _ A lot of things. Not anything. _

*

She returns to her cell.

Anakin — Vader walks her. No Inquisitors this time. She gets the impression that, even though they’re his soldiers and under his training and command, Vader doesn’t like the Inquisitors very much.

Once she’s back in her cell, she finds that it’s been refitted in her absence. The bed has a mattress, sheets, pillows. There’s a desk with a chair and a holopad — no net access, but plenty of reading materials and games to stave off boredom. The refresher is blocked off more thoroughly, the sonic shower is replaced with a water shower, and it’s outfitted with a few luxuries — soft towels, pleasantly scented soaps, practical but quality skincare items. Lots of things that Ahsoka has only ever had occasional access to, in her long life as a Jedi and then an outlaw.

It feels a little like Vader is trying to win her over, or pamper her, and the thought makes her partly uncomfortable and partly, ridiculously, happy. He’d clearly had this planned to start as soon as she left her cell, which means their moment of connection in his room didn’t cause this. He wanted, the whole time, to give this to her.

As she finds herself running her hands over the soft towels, the thought keeps coming back. Ana — Vader’s hand over hers. Him picking out the wine, her food, the luxuries in front of her now.

Ahsoka leaves the refresher, lays face-down on the bed, and screams into the pillow until her throat is raw and the tears stop.

*

He keeps bringing her out of the cell for meals. He keeps talking to her about nothing in particular. He doesn’t show his face again.

Slowly, it becomes almost normal. The food tastes almost good again. Ahsoka doesn’t find herself terrified or despairing after every meeting. She still doesn’t want to be here, still wants to see the outside again and get back to doing her work as Fulcrum, but her time here doesn’t even seem to be a total waste on that front. It’s not all terrible.

That’s what scares her. Is this complacency? Or is it her just feelings about Anakin clouding her judgment?

“Why are you doing this?” she finally asks almost three weeks later, over dinner. She can’t beat around the bush anymore. Vader doesn’t seem surprised at the question. She supposes he must have known she’d ask eventually.

“I would like you to join me,” he says after a moment. “By my side. Not in chains.”

It’s an answer that Ahsoka expected as a possibility. She pushes away her plate, her stomach suddenly unsettled enough that she knows she won’t finish it. Because what she feels most is longing. She knows she can’t do what he wants, but a part of her would do anything to stay by his side. Even having guessed that this might be his motivation for keeping her here, it’s still a punch to the gut to actually hear it and know what she has to do. She’s thought of a response if he said this, but looking into the dark mirrors that are Vader’s eyes, she doesn’t know if she can say it.

But she knows she won’t be able to live with herself, with not knowing what he’d do, if she doesn’t.

“What about being by my side?” she says, and commends herself mentally for her voice staying steady. “What if you came with me? Helped me? What if we were on the same side, the right side, together again?”

It’s like the temperature in the room drops below freezing. Ahsoka knows instantly that she’s made a mistake. Vader doesn’t move a muscle, doesn’t speak, but the feeling that floods her senses is undeniably rage and undeniably his.

“Get out,” he says after a moment. Ahsoka doesn’t wait. She stands and leaves as quickly as she can without running. The Inquisitor outside, a very tall humanoid with rocklike features, guides her back to her cell, clearly indifferent or unaware of the tension in the Force. She’s not sure if she envies or pities the Inquisitors for how clearly pathetic their Force abilities are.

Back in her cell, she paces around and around, wondering vaguely if Vader is watching her. Is he plotting her demise? No, she thinks; he wouldn’t be so furious if he were willing to immediately remove the problem.

She doesn’t know him well enough as Vader to be able to adequately predict his next move, so Ahsoka doesn’t try. She lays down on the bed and considers hers.

And suddenly, she has a idea. An idea that could become a plan.

A very bad plan, admittedly, and one that depends on Vader acting the way she wants him to, but it’s possible. It might actually work. It might actually get her out of here. Because a gilded cage is still a cage and, as today proved, she can’t rely on the goodwill of her captors forever.

She looks up at the camera. There’s a red light on it, blinking, like Vader is watching her.

*

For all her life, Ahsoka has avoided the Dark side. She’s done everything she can to cordon it off, to make sure she’ll never accidentally draw from it. It’s one of the first things younglings learn to do, because the consequences of accidentally drawing dark side power range from madness to destruction. What she’s doing is antithetical to everything she’s believed her whole life, but once she’s decided to do it, it’s almost too easy.

It takes more than a slip of concentration for her to access the power that’s hidden in the back corners of her mind. She pokes and prods around until she finds it, and unspools it in a long, shining ribbon that wraps around her like ropes and sinks into her skin. She feels it settle into her, and when she opens her eyes, she can feel them blazing golden.

She doesn’t feel any different, until she raises a hand and tried to lift her holopad. She lifts it, and before she can fully think it through, it raises straight to the ceiling and smashes, sending bits of plasteel flying all over the room. Ahsoka feels a smile, cold and calculated, slide onto her mouth.

She clenches a fist, and the camera is crushed, falling to the ground.

They should be upon her soon. Ahsoka stands, her heart cold as ice in her chest, and waits.

*

It’s easy to kill the Inquisitors. She bulldozes through with only her hands and the Force, and then she gets one of their ‘sabers, rips off the ridiculous twirling part, and slices through the rest of them with ease. It only takes minutes before she’s surrounded by bodies, her bare feet wet with blood as the puddle covering the floor grows and grows.

She’s watching when Vader turns the corner and sees her. He stops, reeling back in shock. She thinks it’s been a long time since something shocked him.

“You don’t need them,” she says. “They were holding you back.”

“I agree,” he says. “The emperor did not. You spared me his ire by killing them.”

“You should be thanking me, then,” she replies, and steps over the Mirialan’s body, kicking her in the ribs as she goes. Vader stays still as Ahsoka moves down the hall to stand directly in front of him. She’s only a little shorter than him now, she notices, as she raises a blood-dripping hand to touch his mask.

“Are you joining me, then?” he asks. She swears that she can hear him breathing faster under the mask. She’s not sure if it’s pleasure or fear, but she’ll take either. She’s high, she’s on top of the world. She wants to hold him and never let go, wants to see every dark part of him. And she wants to run him through with this bastardized ‘saber in her hand. She doesn’t know which instinct will win out.

“Would you let me go?” she asks with a little bit of a pout. She did this so he’d let her go, but now she doesn’t even know if she wants to. It’s strange, how little she can remember of the woman she was only hours ago.

“I would,” he says. “I want you by my side, but I want you there freely. I know you’ll return.”

Ahsoka hadn’t considered that. Maybe she will go and come back. Or she could just kill him. Or she could stay.

He lifts a hand and takes her wrist, pulling down the hand that Ahsoka was holding to his mask. She can’t see his eyes, but she can feel his gaze drilling into her.

The lightsaber sizzles in her hand.

“What if I kill you?” she says.

“You wouldn’t kill me,” Vader says. Rage floods through Ahsoka like a dam breaking, and she swings the ‘saber up and to his throat, letting it hover there. If she shifts forward, it’ll cut through him. He doesn’t move.

“Stay with me,” he says.

The saber dips a little closer. Ahsoka is trembling. Why is she trembling? She doesn’t know.

“Stay,” he says.

Her finger moves to the ignition button of the ‘saber. Vader’s eyes are covered with hooded lenses, and she can see the gold of her irises in them. She doesn’t want to kill him.

She powers down the lightsaber. Vader takes her face in one hand, like she’d done to him. She expected his cybernetic body to be cold, but the hand against her face is warm, almost comforting. It’s like he’s nearly human again.

“Stay,” he says again.

She drops the lightsaber, letting it fall between her shaking fingers, and it hits the bloody floor with a wet thud.

"Yes," she says.


End file.
